In recent years, as use of the information technology has been being widespread and advanced in a variety of fields, necessity of a data center that provides a customer with a connection line to a network, maintenance/operation services, and the like has been rising.
In general, in the data center, a heat generation amount therein is large since a large number of servers are installed therein. In order to normally operate these servers, it is necessary to keep the data center under environmental conditions within a predetermined range by appropriately performing air conditioning.
As a technology for cooling an inside of a room in which a large number of computers are installed as in the data center, the following has been proposed. An inside of the data center is composed to be partitioned into two spaces, which are: an air supply-side space (cold area) to the servers; and an air exhaust-side space (hot area) therefrom, a cold air is blown into the cold area by an air supply fan, and airflow is formed so that a warm air warmed as a result that the cold air in the cold area is sucked by fans in the servers can be blown out to the hot area.
With such a configuration, a temperature gradient in such an area of the room inside is reduced, and in addition, variations in an air supply temperature are reduced, whereby air conditioning control with a high energy saving effect and good efficiency can be performed.